Selasa, Mei 15, 2012

How did you treat the score when adapting the music for the remake of Psycho?I didn't really do much of anything. I just tried to not touch it. All I did was make tiny little edits here and there. I didn't want Bernard Herman's ghost walking in the room because he was famously cranky. I just imagined him at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night going, 'You asshole, what did you do to my great score?' I handled the music as if it were like Holy Scripture.What is your opinion on new programs that composers use, like orchestra programs, versus a full live orchestra?There are a lot of scores out there that don't use a live orchestra that sound really good. There's nothing that says a score has to have orchestra, but I think if you're going to use orchestra -- a real orchestra sounds better than a sampled orchestra. There's a lot of scores I've done where half of what I've laid down, before going to the orchestra, stays. Really only the strings, brass and woodwinds disappeared. Everything else I've already done myself. I like using my own samples of my own stuff, but I still can't ever top real brass, strings and woodwinds. Even thought the sample libraries are getting better and I think they are suitable, you can't get the nuances out of those instruments yet. Maybe someday they will, but for now I can still hear the difference between a sampled orchestral score. But those work best if the score is not orchestral. I've done scores and pieces where it was almost all samples because there was no money.

Senin, Mei 14, 2012

Though he has made some of the most famous scores to date, he still holds admiration for his peers. Elfman proclaimed Phillip Glass is his greatest inspiration. Surprisingly, when John Bond interviewed Glass at an earlier date, he discovered that he, in return, is a fan of Danny’s.

Jumat, Mei 11, 2012

Johnny Depp used to steal guitar picks from him. Depp’s band would rehearse in the same space as Oingo Boingo and Depp would steal Elfman’s guitar picks because his band was too broke to afford their own. Depp finally admitted to it much later.

Kamis, Mei 10, 2012

AVC: When you’re composing the score to a film that’s based on an existing property, like Dark Shadows, do you go ever back and listen to the music from the original in search of inspiration?

DE: Well, interestingly, this is the first time we have done that. Because on Planet Of The Apes and Charlie [And The Chocolate Factory] and Batman, we made a conscious decision to make no references—ever—to the originals, that they should be their own thing and that we shouldn’t even listen to it. But here, this was different. Tim really did like the tone of the music to the TV show, and he got me listening to it. So half the score is kind of big, melodramatic orchestra, and… We didn’t really know how to approach it at first, but it finally kind of evolved into this clear design where, when we’re in the big part of the love story in the past and how Barnabas became a vampire and his battle with Angelique, we’re using the orchestra in a more or less traditional way. But whenever he’s with the family in the house, we’re going to use an ensemble that’s very much like the ensemble might have been in 1970. A very, very small orchestra, mostly just three solo instruments: a bass clarinet, bass flute, and vibes. And the vibes and the flute very much are taken and inspired from the original TV music. Furthermore, there were these riffs that they did that I really liked, so I did pull some music from the TV show into the score, and Bob Cobert, the writer for that, is credited in the cue sheets for those moments where it kind of becomes a co-composition. So it really was unique. The only time in 75 films or whatever that I’ve ever paid attention to the music of the past was Mission: Impossible, because I knew I was going to use Lalo Schifrin’s song, and Dark Shadows. And it wasn’t a specific piece. It was just a tone, a sound, that we both really liked. So that did make it kind of more fun and special in that way.

The symposium began with Newman conducting five movements of Elfman's score for Errol Morris' Standard Operating Procedure, the acclaimed documentary on abuses at the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.Following the performance, Elfman sat in conversation with journalist Jon Burlingame about his life and composing career. Elfman proved a lively raconteur, regaling the audience with stories about London musicians giving conductor Shirley Walker a chauvinistic attitude on the Batman recording sessions; the Tchaikovsky influences on his writing for Edward Scissorhands and how often his fairy-tale, choir-and-celeste ideas have been "borrowed" since; how he left one highly commercial project in order to score the post-Civil War romance Sommersby motivated by the film's unexpected ending where the hero is hanged; and Morris' unusual ideas about scoring Standard Operating Procedure.Elfman also attended the evening concert and took four curtain calls with Newman and the orchestra at the conclusion, which were met with wild cheers and standing ovations from the packed house at UCLA.

Kamis, Mei 03, 2012

Grammy Award-winning and four-time Oscar®-nominated composer Danny Elfman will be at Warner Bros. Records in Burbank, CA to host a live Q & A open to the public on Tuesday, May 8 at 6:00pm. The event will be moderated by DANSE MACABRE author, Jeff Bond. Signed DARK SHADOWS CD's and signed DANNY ELFMAN AND TIM BURTON 25TH ANNIVERSARY MUSIC BOXES will be available.

I thought the second film was missing a Vincent D'Onofrio, a villain who had real menace to him and raised the stakes. Would you say Jemaine Clement brings that back?

Well, yes, thank you for asking me that. For one, on the second movie, I think we forgot to pay attention to having a really strong villain. D'Onofrio was fantastic, because he was both menacing and also very funny because he was so frustrated by earth. In this movie, Jemaine is an incredibly good villain. For one, Rick Baker's makeup, which took Jemaine four and a half hours every morning to put on, really turned Jemaine from the nicest human being you'll ever meet into someone who both looks and acts really scary. He's a really mean and great-looking villain. We learned from the second one and are back to have a really strong villain. In fact, Danny Elfman, who did the score on all three movies, is huge Jemaine Clement fan and loves every moment of Flight of the Concords. The first time I showed him Men in Black III, he said, "That villain is fantastic. Who is he?" I said his name was Jemaine Clement, and he said "no way." Danny Elfman not recognizing one of his musical idols was very satisfying.

Danny did a fantastic job on the score, with it being reminiscent of the first movie, but also new and hip. Also, by going to 1969, it allowed me to have a lot of really great music from the era. However, some of the music I chose is not so much pop, but Velvet Underground, Cream, and a Rolling Stones I had never heard before called 2,000 Lightyears From Home, and it's a fantastic song.

Track list:1. Men In Black 3 - Main Titles2. Spiky Bulba3. The Set-Up4. Headquarters5. Regret6. Wrong7. Not Funny8. Big Trouble9. Out On A Limb10. Time Jump11. Bad Fortune12. Forget Me Not13. Goin' Back Or Into The Past14. Griffin Steps Up15. True Story16. The Prize-Monocycles17. Boris Meets Boris18. Under The Bridge19. The Mission Begins20. Mission Accomplished21. A Close One22. Men In Black 3 - Main Title Revisited